


escape velocity.

by oceansinmychest



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Admiral Janeway - Freeform, F/F, Fenris Rangers Seven, Kissing, Miscommunication, One Shot, POV Second Person, Picard-era, Post-Endgame, Prose Poem, Purple Prose, Sparring, seven's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28001568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceansinmychest/pseuds/oceansinmychest
Summary: There's lost time between the two of you: words left unsaid, heated debate, the bristle of shoulders, the clench of that self-righteous, sculpted, noble (indignant) jaw. Try as you might, you cannot forget your Captain, your savior, your something and your nothing. Captain and Borg, Seven (never Annika) and Kathryn like to play the grand game of pretend.
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway/Seven of Nine
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22





	escape velocity.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KathyIsWeird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KathyIsWeird/gifts).



> KathyisWeird proposed a fic prompt to me and I just rolled with it. Here’s the premise: PIC-era AU. So janeway and seven end up fighting in hand-to-hand combat but they’re both v gay and upset and eventually they stop the battle and realize they were both being played by an outside force. 
> 
> I haven't seen Picard yet so I've just been having a gay, little time. 
> 
> This little number was inspired by blvck ceiling's "Cool": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7gBAWzcBGI

> "I know you could, but you won't leave them. I know you're cool, but you won't listen."
> 
> _Crucify_ \- Emma Hewitt

Face to face, you find yourselves on separate lines. This is neither the beginning nor the end to your opposition, to your defiance, but you find yourself appalled by Starfleet’s twisted code. So, humanity’s bestowed you with a sense of morals and disgust. It curdles your belly. _Kathryn_ should be proud. One look at her tells you she’s displeased, fury steeling her jaw and her eyes – they flash grey, the blue to them lost like the waves of an angry, hungry sea or an uncaring god. Admiral Janeway is arrogant, quick to defend her uniform that gives her structure and praise and some semblance of fulfillment to alleviate her loneliness. The loneliness that the two of you share, always unspoken amidst Voyager’s purring engine.

You shrug off your leather jacket, no longer as rigid and uncompromising; she taught you the value of life, she taught you to luxuriate, to admire, to simply _be._

No wonder you find yourself in a state of flux. The heels to your boots scrape the dirt, catch a loose stone. You raise a fist. Your biceps flex. With your hair flowing free, you must look feral. Animal. Not as cold and mechanical; your movements mirror a dance, not the rhythm of the living, breathing, thinking, feeling machine that you are.

Once, Tom Paris called you the Tin Woman following the Yellow Brick Road to the Captain’s Oz. You didn’t understand. You dismissed him by walking away to Astrometrics. Now, you know what he meant. Once, you would have followed your Captain to the end of the road, to the edge of any planet, to sentence yourself to the infinitude of space. Your chest puffs out from a rather scornful inhale.

There's lost time between the two of you: words left unsaid, heated debate, the bristle of shoulders, the clench of that self-righteous, sculpted, noble ( _indignant_ ) jaw. Try as you might, you cannot forget your Captain, your savior, your something and your nothing. Captain and Borg, Seven ( **never** Annika) and Kathryn like to play the grand game of pretend – to entertain the fantasy that you both played as children, neglected in favor of duty, of precision, of whatever the hell _this_ is.

So, the two of you ignore Velocity. Janeway gained the upper-hand far too many times despite your calibrations. On three occasions, you let her win to savor the blush accentuating her cheeks. To hear her accelerated heartbeat. To observe the grin that split her wine-stained lips to offer a hint of teeth, slightly off-colored by coffee.

You've changed so much since then. Not innocent, not free. Some paradox of human-machine, woman-child, full of maddening binaries that you refuse to succumb to.

But you both still play the game of pretend, of longing, under the premise of a blood-thirsty sport. You let out your frustration by sparring with her. Your fists fly. Your thighs quake from the strain of tension. You and Janeway dance around one another like you’re in _Le Couer de Lion_ again, her in white and you in silver, shadows of your former selves. In hurricane movement, you hurl yourself at her. Her forearm catches yours, her hand upon your fist. It hurts more than you expect when she squeezes your tendons. Uses her blunt, filed nails. Nanoprobes will vanquish the bruising, but a part of you wishes that were not so. You want to remember the hurt and pain she’s caused you. You want to forget the love she’s shown you in quiet ways, noble gestures that you have long since locked away inside you.

She's smaller than you, still flexible despite her age, the grey at her temples, the sagging of her skin. However, it isn't for these reasons that she loses. Her heart, wild and beating and human and free, causes her to falter when you approach her. Grab her by the jaw, pull her to the ground.

Wild and untamable, you pin her to the ground. You straddle her hips, sweaty and panting. You lean in, as if you seek to bestow Janeway - Captain, Kathryn - with a bloody kiss. She tastes metal, hers and yours combined in the salty elixir known as life.

Then, the Admiral looks to you. The storm to her eyes lessens, lightens, with a sliver of morning blue. She pants, her chest heaves from the exertion. Forearms pinned to the ground, her hips buck. You didn't expect that despite your assimilated knowledge. You conqueror of worlds. Or maybe you did. You know every possibility, every ending, every ripple effect to grace chaos theory.

Beneath her, you crucify her. You damn her. You don’t see a saint, you see a crusader. You see how destructive humanity is. You see a woman beneath you. You see her, and you’re still looking, still watching her as you had as a drone, as a woman reborn.

"What are we doing?" Kathryn asks with a half-choked sob; suddenly, your grip falters as she moves to wind her fingers in that tangle of spun gold: light white in some parts.

"I do not know," you confess, distracted by how the rasp of her voice reminds you of bourbon's burn.

You want more. Always, you have wanted more.

And despite her reservations, she moves to kiss you. She does. She presses her mouth to yours, as if to apologize for the years lost, the bridges burned.

Your mouth moves, the sounds you articulate (grieving, desperate, wretched) muffled by her reverent kisses. She ruins you, has ruined you, will ruin you and you let her in: you let Kathryn in and hold her to your body, your mess of circuitry, and she hushes you with another kiss – an apology, a quiet gesture like the ones she used to show you aboard her ship, your home.

She settles her forehead against yours. In adoration, her thumb wipes the dirt marring your pale cheek. She strokes the outline of your optical implant, waltzing between the binary of flesh-metal, metal-flesh.

Soothed, your shoulders lower by .5 centimeters. You have found the end of the road, yellow bricks crushed beneath your bodies, and you understand – _now_ – that this is as close to Oz as the two of you will ever get.


End file.
